


Freedom's Price

by delazeur



Series: Are You There, Maker? It's Me, Marian. [3]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Anders Needs a Hug, Angst, Because Thedas is a messy place, Chantry Boom, Crazy In Love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Freedom, Hawke Needs a Hug, Hawke hates Elthina, Ideology, Paid for in blood, Silly hats, sex on a boat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-28
Updated: 2014-03-28
Packaged: 2018-01-17 06:59:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1378108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delazeur/pseuds/delazeur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marian Hawke has loved mages her whole life and hates what the world does to them. When Anders plans to attack the Chantry she's actually pretty okay with that. If only he'd pull his head out of his ass and let her help. </p><p>Written for kink meme prompt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Freedom's Price

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for a prompt that requested Hawke to be understanding about bombing the Chantry. I know this pushes buttons for some people, and that's okay. This particular Hawke is crazy devoted to Anders and his cause and believes the Chantry to be the state apparatus that is responsible for the violence to people she loves. 
> 
> It was tricky to write, and I probably still haven't quite hit the mark. 
> 
> Hopefully it doesn't come off as a screed or a diatribe. :)
> 
> Kmeme prompt: Hawke tells Anders s/he understands why he destroyed the Chantry. That the only way mages would ever get their freedom was to revolt. 
> 
> S/he understands that Freedom is a right everyone should have but it isn't free. It is the most expensive right there is because it is always paid for in blood.
> 
> Bonus:  
> -If Hawke allows Anders to live and they are in a relationship and stay together.  
> -If Hawke and Fenris have a conversation about why Hawke chose to help the mages.

The clinic was silent and dark. Hawke felt the corner of her left eye twitch. 

_He’s lying to you, Marian._

She pressed a fist into the rough wood of the door, and she could feel her own pulse in her temples as she thought of the times she’d bled all over this room. Lots of blood over the years, and Anders was always there to staunch the flow, stem the tide of darkness. But these last few months? These last few months were bullshit. 

Hawke ran her fingers through her hair, turning in a slow circle, eyes looking for some clue as to where he was, what he was hiding. She had her suspicions of course. She’d lived with the man for years now, knew his habits, understood which secrets she should let him keep. She knew how stressed he felt based on how he smelled, for Andraste’s sake. The absence of books and notes in the study of their home was a clue. The absence of the same in his clinic gripped her heart with fear.

He was hiding, and he didn’t have to. “Maker, Anders.” Her defeated murmur aroused no interest in the empty shadows. Hawke trudged home. 

Home. That was a strange word. It used to mean so many things. Songs by the hearth on snowy nights in Ferelden, her father changing the color of the flames by request, and then teaching Bethany to do the same. 

Home. A brawl with Carver in the barn when she caught him there kissing the daughter of one of the widower lay brothers from the village chantry. Bloodied nose and the grit of dust and hay in her teeth, fierce with pride that she was the one who would always protect her family. Her mage father. Her mage sister. Anything, even beating her brother bloody. Even scaring away his friends with devout parents. She would do anything for her mages. 

Home. Wrapped in the scent of elfroot and ink, laughing madly as Anders pinned her and ran his bristly chin against her neck until she had bucked him off and caught him in his own shirt, licking her way across his chest to his navel. She would be everything for her mage. 

_Your mages, Marian. How’s that working out right now?_

She wanted it to be easy, safe, but this was Kirkwall, and the truth was nothing was normal or right. So when Anders asked her to go to the sewers and pick through piles of turds for the crystallized remnants of piss she did it. 

She would do anything for that secretive, beautiful, crazy idiot. Literally anything. When her instincts screamed that he was lying she tried to figure out why, what about, what for. But never to stop him. She just needed to know the score. Where were her debts, what were the favors she could call in? 

How could she keep him safe? What did he need? 

_What if he’ll never tell you, Marian? What if you only ever trail after, trying to make sense of his mess?_

She found him prone on their bed, one boot off, clothes still on, gusty snores ruffling the raven feathers on the shoulder his face was turned toward. She sat on the end of the bed, took his ankle in hand, and kissed the arch of his bare foot. 

His toes clenched at the touch of her lips against his sole and she let her fingers tickle up his calf to the back of his knee, slithering her hand beneath his trouser leg. She nibbled at the back of his ankle, scraping her teeth over his tendon, and the snoring ended with a soft groan. Her beautiful, ridiculous man. 

Before he could turn over she slid up until she was sitting on his arse, and stripped the coat off his shoulders. The old coat had been smelly and worn, but the black and gold of the replacement made her insides itch. Another secret kept, another lie they both pretended he hadn’t told. It landed with a jangle of buckles next to the bed. 

Hawke let him turn over so that she straddled his hips and he blinked muzzily up at her. “Nice to have you home.” She ran her hands under his shirt, up his chest, letting her nails dig lightly along his ribs, enjoying the arch and hitch in his chest. 

“Nice to be… what?” His hands stilled hers, gripping her wrists, as he blinked the confusion from his eyes, all liquid gold and shadow in the fading firelight.

“Home, Anders. You’re home. Haven’t seen you in three days.” She leaned down to nuzzle against his throat and he caught her shoulders, holding her at bay. She scowled at him. 

“No. I was here… but the clinic…” 

_What if this is all you ever get, Marian? What if his blank spots and weary eyes are all that Justice leaves for you? What then?_

“Hey, love. No. You’re here and I’m here, and you can tell me whatever it is?” She could be boneless when she wanted, and somehow she slid through his hands and pressed against his chest, and her lips tangle with his. She broke from the kiss and smiled. “Please, Anders. Tell me, whatever you need.” His hands slid down to her waist, snugging her tighter over his hips and her hands found his hair, pulled it free from the tie that bound it. 

“I…” She watched his throat constrict and bob as he swallowed, once, twice. “I need you, sweetheart. I need to be…” He didn’t need to finish the sentence. He needed to feel like himself, to be a body rubbing against a body, anchored and lovely and real. 

“Shh.” The taste of his mouth was full of confusion, musty, maybe days since he’d had food or water, but she kissed it, lapped into it while her hands wiggled as clever as any rogues hands between them to loosen his trousers and pull him free. “You’ve got me, lover. You’ve always got me.” 

_Dear Maker, don’t take him from me. Don’t let that motherfucker Vengeance keep him. I can share, Andraste knows I can, but I’m his and he’s mine, and please… please… oh please. Just, please. Don’t take the little bit I have left._

Anders pressed up against her and she smiled as she stroked him, even though her heart was clammy and aching, but for the moment she could bite his earlobe and wriggle and pant until he woke enough to strip her clothes and sink into her, hard and hot and crackling with lightning. 

If that was how he needed her, that was what she would be, reminding him of flesh and hunger and humanity. But when he slept in her arms she stroked his hair and watched him and whispered, “Come on, Anders. You stubborn shit. No more hiding. Not from me.”

* * * * * * * * * 

“I need to ask you for one last favor.” Anders stopped just inside the clinic doors to turn and face her. Hawke watched him, sallow and receding from her, a little more every day.

“One _last_ favor, Anders? Don’t be melodramatic. I’m sure that there will be favors in the future. Picking up apples from the market. Harvesting elfroot when I’m out on the coast.” Hawke leaned against the door jamb, trying not to let her fingers skip over the knife at her belt. She wanted to hold it, flip it, twirl it. She always did when she got nervous or bitey and the look on his face was definitely something she wanted to bite. “I’m almost positive you’ll need more quills cut by the end of the week.” 

It was like she hadn’t even spoken. “I… I can’t tell you why. ” Anders was shifty today, haggard, his eyes slipping and darting from the floor to the roofbeams of the clinic. Occasionally he’d graze her face with a glance, but never meet her eyes. Would he even remember this tomorrow? “But I need to get into the chantry. Without being seen.” 

This was about the _potion_. She wasn’t an idiot. It had taken her three days of rifling through his boltholes and hiding places to find a book in Tevene, then four pointed questions for Solivitus in the Gallows, and there it was. Not a potion for spirit possession. 

“Okay, tonight. After third bell is when the guards are sleepiest. The side door is criminally easy to open. I could sneeze at it and that lock would give it up for me.” He shook his head slowly at her and she felt her jaw set. 

“No, I need you to distract the Grand Cleric. This afternoon. So that I can do what needs to be done.” The point he fixed his eyes on was somewhere around her knees. 

_This isn’t about distraction, Marian. This is keeping you out of the way where people can see you. This is your alibi._

Her eyes burned as she folded her arms, hunching her shoulders down, and she felt the twist in her stomach as she hated this world. A world that crushed him, had crushed her family, that took and took and cowards like Elthina patted heads and tutted about compromise. 

“Of course.” Hawke flicked her gaze back up to him. “You know how I like to scandalize the old biddy.” That should have made him smile, the name he’d given the Grand Cleric when he snarled about her uselessness to Bonny Prince Fancy Pants. The last time Sebastian had ever been welcome in Hawke’s presence actually. 

His eyes stilled, fixed on hers, and his eyebrows raised. She swallowed around the knot, fierce, sharp, full of bitterness that curdled in her chest. He was surprised by her acquiescence. By the lack of further interrogation. “Truly? Yes, okay, good. We’ll go then?” Nervousness caused his raven feathers to shift and flutter as he shuffled to gather a satchel that was placed in the center of his desk. 

It was smaller than she thought it ought to be. 

_Maybe it isn’t so bad. Maybe you got it all wrong._

_It needs to be bad if anyone is going to see._

Hawke caught his wrist and pulled him close, going up on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “You know that whatever it is, I’m here, yeah?” She tightened her grip when he tried to turn away. “You can always trust me, like I trust you.” 

_Oh please, love, please look at me._

“It isn’t you I don’t trust, Mae. I promise, none of this will come back on you.” The storm of sorrow she saw in his eyes made her flinch and she stared at him. Did he believe that? That she was somehow uninvested in his fights? She’d been shouldering as much as he’d let her take for years, would have taken it all for him, all the risks, all the weight if he’d let her. If he’d only ever tell her what he needed. Well, now he’d told her this one thing that she could do. Speak with the Grand Cleric so that he could lie to himself and say she was saved from his actions. 

His hand brushed the small of her back as she led him out of the clinic and out of Darktown, and if only she could lead him out of the dark and into a world where the light was for him, all for him, and he could be free. 

The next time she saw Meredith alone she would kill her. Stab her in her cruel blue eyes, make her sink in darkness and let her know how it felt to be trapped underneath the certainty that the person that held her life in hand was unconvinced of her humanity. 

_Wouldn’t it be easier if they were all monsters, Marian?_

Hawke wasn’t sure she’d seen anything to convince her otherwise.

* * * * * * * * * 

The messenger caught up to Hawke while she and Isabela were hat shopping. She held a wide-brimmed Orlesian chevalier hat in burgundy leather with a tacked side, and a huge rosette of feathers and ribbons pinned there. She was tilting it this way and that, frowning skeptically as Isabela made shooing motions with her hands. 

“Put it on, Hawklet. It’ll distract from that face you’ve been making.” The pirate held a tri-corner hat in an eye-bending aqua up next to her cheek. “Do you think this makes me look jaundiced?”

The face that Hawke had been making firmed a little as she clapped the hat onto her head and jutted her chin out. Tight-eyed worry warring with exhaustion was now layered under an attempt at dry amusement. “Jaundiced and lyrium addled.” She pointed at her head. “Where as I look quite dashing, I’m sure.” 

Isabela laughed, unoffended and reached toward Hawke to cock the hat slightly to the right and forward. “Well that’s jaunty. You look like a proper rake.” Her fingers brushed lightly over Hawke’s cheek. “You can shiver my timbers any day, sweet thing.” 

She snapped at Isabela’s fingers, clicking her teeth together with an attempt at a smirk. Her eyes shifted once again toward the spire of the Chantry looming over the Hightown market. 

Three days since she’d publicly called Elthina a spineless shrew who was lying to herself and Kirkwall if she truly thought the so-called stalemate between Orsino and Meredith would end in anything other than the Rite of Annulment. Three days since Elthina had bowed her head and said if Annulment was the Maker’s will it was out of her hands and with the Divine. Three days since she’d been thrown out of the Chantry by an incensed Sebastian Vael for slapping his mentor, the evil, faithless cow. Three days since Anders had done… something in the chantry. 

She had felt breathless, unable to sleep since, watching Anders and waiting for his move, whatever it was. Maker, she had the mother of all headaches. 

_Too timid to ask Anders to heal it, Marian?_

Too afraid that if she looked at him too long he’d crumble to dust and blow away. He was brittle and vacant and it was making her ache. 

Isabela had announced they were hat-shopping so she’d gone, and the sun felt nice, almost normal, and Isabela’s flirting had given her something else to think about. When the messenger appeared at her elbow with an envelope and an upturned palm, Hawke blinked at her and felt for a moment like the years had melted away and she was being handed a summons to attend the Viscount or a lead on some work that would net her coin for the Deep Roads expedition, and she only needed to gather up Fenris and Anders and Varric and all would be well. 

_Killing Qunari and bandits is an odd measure of wellness, Marian._

_But better than darkspawn, or starvation._

And better than whatever the city had since devolved into, Meredith’s madnes, martial law, and the gut gripping fear that any given trip to the Gallows would confront her with Merrill or Anders placid and empty, cluttering up the courtyard with so many other empty shells.

She dropped a silver into the girl’s hand and cracked the seal on the parchment, pulling out the note requesting her immediate attendance on the First Enchanter to defend him from Knight Commander Meredith’s most recent lapse of sanity. 

“And it was shaping up to be such a nice day.” She sighed at the paper and handed it to Isabela who read it with an arched eyebrow. 

“I wonder what kind of insane bee that woman has in her mad bonnet now?” She sounded bored by the whole thing but she looked expectantly at Hawke while dropping a sovereign on the table. 

“I’m sure it has nothing at all to do with blood mage conspiracies, demanding the head of ‘the Champion’s pet apostates’, or trying to convince anyone that all the mages in the Gallows are currently abominations.” She straightened her spine. Maybe this confrontation would happen privately in Orsino’s office where she could make good on her silent promise. She checked her weapons, her flasks and poisons, and glanced sidelong at her friend. “I’m going to kill that bitch today, Bells.” 

The scent of sandalwood and ambergris enveloped her as Isabela slung an arm around her neck and kissed her on the temple. “Sounds like a party. I’ll go round up Varric and anyone else loitering about. Don’t do all the stabbing before we get there.” 

_Should have done the stabbing months ago, before the most recent wave of mages made Tranquil._

But instead she’d watched Anders and waited for him to ask her for help and tried not to scream in frustration when he only closed off, more desperate, hunted and trembling with rage.

He’d always said he’d break her heart. But it wasn’t about her heart, was it? It was the world that was broken.

* * * * * * * * * 

The quiet meeting that ended in Meredith Stannard’s murder was not destined to happen. And ultimately that was fitting. The gesture had to be greater, the violence painted on the sky, in order for the world to hear the call to arms and answer. 

Maker, she was winded, covered in blood, a long slice along her ribs, and there were dead Templars all over the ground at the foot of the steps in the Lowtown Bazaar. She kept her hand pressed to her side as she looked around at her friends, _their_ friends who stood dazed and hollow eyed, trying to look anywhere but at him. 

He was slumped on a crate like he was already dead. 

There was a buzzing in her ears, and Orsino was talking, and the oily gratefulness in his voice was making her skin crawl. She shifted her grip on her blade, slanting her gaze at him as he sneered, “I’ll leave your… friend for you to deal with.” 

The world had narrowed. She stumbled as she turned toward him. 

“Oh, Anders.” She needed him to heal her or a health potion or something. “Come on. Up.” 

“There isn’t anything you can say to me that I haven’t already said to myself.” The words fell out of his mouth like they were rehearsed. He wasn’t even talking to her. 

“Anders, get up.” She circled around to face him, so that she could look at his face. It wasn’t as slack, as vacant as she expected. There were waves of pain, regret, and relief. She used the knife in her hand to prod his pauldron. 

_What if he isn’t in there anymore, Marian?_

_He is. He just doesn’t think so._

“This is the justice that all mages have awaited.” His eyes had slid toward the knife she poked him with, that blighted relief swelling until it was dominant in his expression. He sounded at peace, the asshole. 

“Maker damn you, Anders, get up.” There was uneasy shifting from the others, behind her, creaking of leather, rattling of buckles and scabbards. 

“I wanted to tell you. But what if you stopped me. Or worse? What if you wanted to help?” Wanted to help? She’d wanted to help, had helped for years! 

_Well if ever there was evidence he was in danger of falling into his own navel, here it is._

She slapped him, her gloved hand sodden from her wound, the handprint she left wet and red. Her own blood. His eyes suddenly focused on her, and they crackled for a moment with anger, just his anger, startlement, pain. It was something. “We’re finishing the job, Anders. You, me, them.” There was an outraged, strangled shout from Sebastian, and she rolled her eyes. “Well not _him_. Him I’m going to beat to a sticky paste if he threatens you again. But we’re here to free the mages, yes? So, Meredith dies along with any Templar that tries to stop them from walking out.” 

The confused, incredulous expression that Anders wore was the first honest one she’d seen from him in days. “You mean… stay with you? I didn’t think you’d let me.” 

“Where did you think I’d send you?” Her fingertip dug into his sternum. Good, she’d sheathed the knife. Wouldn’t do to kill him on accident when she was trying to save him from his own bottomless depths of self-sacrifice.

“I thought if I paid with my life, at least Justice would be free.” 

_They all thought you’d do it, Marian. All of them were waiting to watch you stab him in the back and get on with your life. Him especially._

That was never going to happen. This war was years coming, and it was her job to see him live to wage it. His conviction, his passion, Justice’s strange, fell strength. None of that was a betrayal, and all his protestations of love, all his worry about her life and her heart, she’d always known the cause came first, regardless of what careless words slipped out of his mouth. No, she wasn’t going to kill him. 

She closed her eyes as she looked for a center to her suddenly shifting axis. “Maker, Anders.” The world was tipping, and his hand caught her shoulder, the warmth of his healing flooding into her, the pain in her side easing. It was as natural as anything, as reaching to brush his hair from his eyes, as running her lips along his collarbone and listening to him sigh, as natural as putting herself between his body and the violence of the world. When he started to release her she grabbed his hand fiercely and murmured, “You are pretty and I love you. But you were always a terrible liar.” 

His eyes rounded as he looked at her, tongue flicking to wet his lips, nervous and uncertain. “I don’t understand.” 

“Don’t I know it? It’s because you don’t pay attention. We’ll talk about it later.” 

“Mae, what in Andraste’s name are you wearing on your head?” There was a hysterical note in his voice and she rolled her eyes up to catch a glimpse of the stupid hat Isabela had talked her into trying on earlier. 

“Isabela is trying to convince me to turn pirate. I think it might be working.” She brought his hand to her face and kissed his knuckles before dragging him toward the docks.

* * * * * * * * * 

It was long past sunset but the clouds to the west were still stained the same lurid pink. Hawke shifted her gaze to the sky directly above where the scudding clouds allowed flashes of starlit sky to peek through. It was cold on the deck of Isabela’s ship, but she couldn’t stand to be belowdecks. The smell had not been washed from her hair or clothes yet. The smell of death and burning, demon ichor and corrupted lyrium, overwhelmed and choked her. Up here the wind and the salt bore the stench away and she could breath. 

The Gallows had been worse than she’d ever feared. 

_Finally found the outer limit of your tolerance for carnage, huh?_

She rubbed her face on her knees, trying to squeeze the tears back, trying to banish the images of mages giving in to their fear and desperation, Templars seizing the command to kill even the children of the Circle, acting in basest cruelty. 

Very few had been saved. A handful. Anders was not taking it well. 

“Hawke.” 

She tipped her head up, sighed when she saw the white hair whipping in the wind, flashing silver in the starlight. “Fenris.” 

He leaned against the railing next to her and then dropped to a crouch. His grace was always silent, effortless, trained for both aesthetic pleasure and deadly utility. “I wish to know what you intend now.” 

_Oh Maker, don’t make me throw him overboard._

“I’m not letting anyone take him.” Her hands were knotted into fists on her knees and she watched Fenris carefully. 

The elf grunted softly. “I did not think you would, though I do not claim to understand it.” 

“Did you think I should have let the Qunari take Isabela?” She watched his brands flicker fitfully at the question and shifted a little so that she could draw her knives if it became necessary. He was without his sword, but his hands were enough of a weapon. 

“She did not use a forbidden, magic-laced explosive to start a war.” He watched her sidelong, eyes narrowed. 

“Hmm. She caused the deaths of hundreds of people, including Qunari, because she refused to return their most important religious relic, the text of the Qun written in their prophet’s own hand. To save herself from an Antivan asshole that you could have killed by yourself in your sleep.” It had taken Hawke a long time to forgive her best friend for that, the selfishness, the lack of trust. 

It took Fenris a bit to formulate his answer, always careful, always precise with his words so long as his temper was not flaring. She was surprised he was still in such control at the moment. “That was regrettable, but not a war. Surely even you are not so blinded by his madness that you cannot see the difference.” 

The shift she made to come up onto the balls of her feet, crouched in front of the elf, so that their faces were mere inches apart was done in an eyeblink. Even as tired as she was, as heavy as her limbs felt, she pushed her speed to catch him off-guard, to remind him who she was. “Do you know how many of the mages in the Gallows would have died if Anders had not acted?” He was scowling at her, shoulders slightly hunched, eyes narrowed in startlement at her sudden proximity. “All of them. No, shut up. Maybe not today, but by the end of the month? Every last one of them. Because Meredith, who was insane and possibly possessed by a demon herself, was going to Annul the Circle, silently, invisibly.” 

“That was one Circle, Marian.” Fenris so rarely used her given name. She blinked and tilted her head, listening carefully, closely. “This will be war. Thousands will die.” 

There was still blood griming her fingernails, streaked in the creases of her knuckles. There hadn’t been enough hot water to do the job properly. She closed her hand on one of Fenris’ wrists. 

_Dirty hands, Marian. Very dirty._

“I can’t make you see the similarities, Fenris. I can’t force you to open your eyes. But you know better than anyone that the boot on your neck, the knife at your throat, the leash that makes you kneel… it isn’t something that can be reasoned away.” This fight had been going on for years between her and Fenris. 

For the first time since she’d known him, Fenris looked worn. Older, lines around his eyes and mouth making her wonder how many years he’d lost in the blankness of his memory. He sighed and dipped his head slightly. “I would not have wished this for you, a life of running and fighting and war. And to have it be on the abomination’s behalf?” 

“Hey, if you want to start a war, I’ve got some free time in about ten years. Shall I have Varric add you to the calendar?” That was rewarded with a sour smirk. “I am with him. It was always going to be running and fighting. I don’t want to live my life like my parents did. I’d rather have a battle to fight than a safe place to hide. I had enough of that in Ferelden. In Kirkwall. Sometimes you have to turn and face the tiger.” 

Fenris huffed softly, brow furrowing in irritation. “You are going where I may not be able to follow you, Hawke.” 

She touched his cheek lightly. 

_His face is still a poem._

“I’ll be sad to see you leave.” She stood slowly, taking a step back so she wouldn’t loom over him. “But you’ll always be welcome back.” 

He stood as well, eyes of a level with hers, looking at her evenly. “And if I go to Starkhaven?” 

_He won’t. He can’t. Shit, Marian, if he goes to Sebastian you need a new plan._

“That’s hardly fair, Fenris. If I’d known that was likely I would have killed the shiny little shit in Lowtown. Him I’m not scared of.” She pushed him lightly on the chest, making him sway back. “You? I need to go change my pants.” 

The hard, worn lines of his face softened as his lips quirked, showing her the exasperated smile that she’d fought hard to win over the years. “No, it is not likely, Hawke. So long as the mage’s demon does not corrupt you. I worry that this world you fight for will be a new Imperium.” 

“Then you’d better stay, keep me honest. Keep him irritated.” She needed help, because the man she’d led onto the boat, the one who saw his brethren slaughtered or mad and screaming, ridden by demons… he was an idealist who had never considered the realities of his war. 

_He never thought he’d have to fight it. He was going to die._

Well, that was stupid. He should have known her better than that.

* * * * * * * * * 

The cabin was lit by a small globe of light that hovered near the ceiling. It wavered when Hawke opened the door, then steadied. 

_He isn’t sleeping. He won’t eat. You can’t tell if he’s even listening when you talk. What do you try next?_

The blue-white glow cast glints in his open eyes, interrupted by intermittent blinking. It was their second night at sea and he hadn’t spoken to anyone since she’d tucked him into this cabin. He was in shirtsleeves and trousers, hair disheveled around his face. The only thing that gave her hope was that he could make the choice not to be in the dark. 

He still hated the dark.

“Anders?” 

_Love. Always._

Hawke stripped off her over tunic and her breeches. Like many of the sailors on Isabela’s ship she found boots slippery and uncomfortable, leathers too likely to stiffen in the spray. He remained still and silent. 

She moved to the bed, or maybe it was a bunk. The box was wide enough for two friendly people, but the way Anders was sprawled meant very little room for her. She clambered on top of him, unperturbed and stretched out full length over him, propping her chin on a hand, elbow on the pillow next to his head. 

“Varric and I have asked Isabela to head for Dairsmuid. We figured we’d be able to get in touch with agents of the underground there.” She combed her hand gently through his hair, working the tangles free with deft fingers, anchoring herself in the familiarity of the soft strands. “Does that sit alright with you?” 

There was a slight change in the rhythm of his breathing, and his eyes closed. “Why are you doing this?” He sounded lost, alone in the dark, despite the light that he had made with his will, despite her presence. 

She pressed her lips to his temple and whispered, “What else should I be doing?” 

Anders flinched away from her face. “You should be running as far away as you can, hoping you forget you ever met me.”

Well that was never going to happen. Her mouth was full of irritation when nipped his earlobe. “Stop it.” 

His body shifted, pushing her off and she found herself slammed against the wall the bunk was bolted to, his hand around her throat, body pressed full length against hers. “Don’t pretend like this is normal. Don’t act like I’m the man you knew.” There were glimmers of Fade in his eyes. “How can you live what I’ve done?” His grip was tight but not painful.

“What we’ve done.” She brushed her fingers through his hair again, letting her eyes fix on his, tears starting in them. A frown of consternation flashed across his face and the gleam of Justice faded slowly. “Do you think I couldn’t have stopped you if I wanted to? You think I didn’t know? I’m not a moron, and you have never been able to bluff. At. All.” 

His eyes closed for a moment as her fingers grazed past his ear, rubbed against his scalp to the nape of his neck. “Mae, I… I don’t know who I am, anymore. Vengeance, Justice, it all tangles together.” His grip on her throat stayed but he leaned forward until his forehead rested on hers. 

“I know who you are.” She arched her back to press her hips against him, tipped her face so that her lips could brush against his. “You’re the same crazy bastard you’ve always been. The one I had to wrestle to get to kiss me, the one that convinced half his brain I’d be a distraction.” She nipped at his lower lip. “The one that makes me real in the middle of the night when all I want is to fall apart and drift away.” The spot she’d bitten on that full lower lip that always made her crazy… she sucked on it softly. 

“Maker, Marian.” His hand tight on her throat, his hips pressed against her, she could feel him hardening. Good. She would drag him back to himself with her mouth and her hands. 

_Is this for him, or for you, Marian?_

Why couldn’t it be both?

The hand she’d threaded in his hair pulled him forward, urging him to kiss her while her mouth opened in between small nips, light brushes of her tongue. “This is the world we’re fighting for, Anders. Where someone like you can love someone like me? Remember?” Apparently he did because his mouth was suddenly crushed over hers, his knee between her legs, parting her thighs, the hand on her throat circling to the base of her neck and pulling her toward him. 

She pushed him and he moved, rolling back to look up at her, and she could see the worry in his eyes, but she tried to kiss it away, devouring it, leaving him breathless. She shoved his trousers down over his hips, off his feet while he pulled his shirt over his head. Both their smalls followed. He jerked her shirt up, off, and when she knelt over him he went still, staring at her. 

“How can you…?” His voice wavered, lost in waves of doubt, and she bent to kiss him, sliding her hips against his, rubbing where she was wet against where he was hard and they moaned each into the other’s mouth. 

“There isn’t any way I can’t, Anders.” She reached down to part herself, push him inside, knees on either side of his hips. Once she had him tight, safe, she pulled on his shoulders, urged him to sit up so that she could wrap her legs around him. “This is the only way.” 

They stopped speaking for a while as he lifted her with his long-fingered hands, and she rose and fell around him, the slip and surge of his flesh in hers becoming her world for the moment. When she drew close he pressed harder, hips twitching faster, and she buried her hands in his hair and brought her face against his and keened into his mouth as she came for him. When he spilled inside his fingers gripped her, bruising hard, and that was good too because it meant he wasn’t letting go. He was holding on. 

He was slowly softening in her, her mouth still on his, breath coming in soft pants, when he spoke. Her ridiculous man, already twisting himself up again. “I don’t know how to forget their faces. The ones who died, or became demons, the ones we were trying to protect. I caused that. They fell because of me.”

“I’m going to tell you what I told Fenris.” He grimaced, and she grinned at his discomfort. Would he scold her for that name coming out of her mouth while his semen was slick between them still, she was naked in his lap? He didn’t, so she continued. “They all would have died if we had done nothing. Meredith was moving forward with the Rite. They would have been slaughtered in their beds. We gave them the chance to fight, to try to reach for their freedom.” She pushed his forehead against hers. 

“And what did Fenris say?” 

“First he scolded me about starting a war for you. Then he tried to change the subject because he didn’t want to agree with me.” She smirked as his eyes opened to peer at her with suspicion. 

“Hmm.” His prickling irritation made her shiver and she shifted against him. He was here. She could feel him, sticky and smelling of sweat and sex and still faintly of ash and death. But together, here. Hers. 

“Hey, Anders?” 

“Hmm?” He drew back a little, studying her face.

“You remember how you told me you were always going to break my heart?” 

“Because there were things worth more than my life.” His eyes tightened, his mouth curving down at the corners. “There are things worth more than my life.” 

“You did. Break it, I mean.” One of her hands smoothed his hair again, a slow soothing stroke. 

She heard him swallow, the arms around her loosening, trying to draw away. She tightened her legs around his waist, held him there. 

“It wasn’t because you chose mages or revolution over me.” 

“No?” It was the faintest whisper. 

“No.” She wet her lips, closed her eyes for a moment. So much had been taken from both of them. There were still things yet to take. “It was the way you ignored how... you never understood that it’s this world, this fucking world that hates you for being born… I would burn this world down as a gift to you. You only ever had to ask.” 

Her eyes opened to see his face twist, eyes shifting down, flooding with tears. He buried his face in her shoulder, arms crushing around her middle. “You’re bloody crazy.” 

“Well I fell in love with you, didn’t I?” 

_Had it been falling, or was it simply true?_

_Always already in love with a madman. There’s a story for Varric._

The sound of his breath was hoarse, bunching in soft sobs, and his tears were wet against her neck, but she linked her ankles behind him, clutched him tight, fingers in his hair, arms wound around his neck. Tonight he could mourn his beautiful ideal, and tomorrow they could start dealing with the reality of the cost of freedom.

_Messy, bloody, mad freedom. It’s terrifying._

_So is everything worth having._

The panicked beating in her chest as she clutched her ridiculous, broken, beautiful man to it agreed. Terrifying and hardly free.


End file.
